Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang'' or ``twinge'' of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations'' to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt'' is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings'' involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject'' account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs'' of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.     

Challenges to Audi's Ethical Intuitionism

Robert Audi's ethical intuitionism (Audi, 1997, 1998) deals effectively with standard epistemological problems facing the intuitionist. This is primarily because the notion of self-evidence employed by Audi commits to very little. Importantly, according to Audi we might understand a self-evident moral proposition and yet not believe it, and we might accept a self-evident proposition because it is self-evident, and yet fail to see that it is self-evident. I argue that these and similar features give rise to certain challenges to Audi's intuitionism. It becomes harder to argue that there are any self-evident propositions at all, or more than just a few such propositions. It is questionable whether all moral propositions that we take an interest in are evidentially connected to self-evident propositions. It is difficult to understand what could guide the sort conceptual revision that is likely to take place in our moral theorising. It is hard to account for the epistemic value of the sort of systematicity usually praised in moral theorising. Finally, it is difficult to see what difference the truth of Audi's ethical intuitionism would make to the way in which we (fail to) handle moral disagreement.     

Aristotle on Pleasure and the Worst Form of Akrasia

The focus of this paper is Aristotle's solution to the problem inherited from Socrates: How could a man fail to restrain himself when he believes that what he desires is wrong? In NE 7 Aristotle attempts to reconcile the Socratic denial of akrasia with the commonly held opinion that people act in ways they know to be bad, even when it is in their power to act otherwise. This project turns out to be largely successful, for what Aristotle shows us is that if we distinguish between two ways of having knowledge (‘potentially’ and ‘actually’), the Socratic thesis can effectively account for a wide range of cases (collectively referred to here as ‘drunk-akrasia’) in which an agent acts contrary to his general knowledge of the Good, yet can still be said to ‘know’ in the qualified sense that his actions are wrong. However, Book 7 also shows that the Socratic account of akrasia cannot take us any farther than drunk-akrasia, for unlike drunk-akrasia, genuine akrasia cannot be reduced to a failure of knowledge. This agent knows in the unqualified sense that his actions are wrong. The starting-point of my argument is that Aristotle's explanation of genuine akrasia requires a different solution than the one found in NE 7 which relies on the distinction between qualified and unqualified ‘knowing’: genuinely akratic behaviour is due to the absence of an internal conflict that a desire for the ‘proper’ pleasures of temperance would create if he could experience them.     

科技伦理:在真与善之间

科技与伦理在实践中的内在关联,使科技伦理问题成为现代科技实践的重要方面。其中,科学活动的违规和失范现象,科技运行中的公正与效率问题,科技时代的生命安顿与伦理精神的创新,是当前在真与善之间特别为人们关注的问题。     

Identification and Responsibility

Real-self accounts of moral responsibility distinguish between various types of motivational elements. They claim that an agent is responsible for acts suitably related to elements that constitute the agent's real self. While such accounts have certain advantages from a compatibilist perspective, they are problematic in various ways. First, in it, authority and authenticity conceptions of the real self are often inadequately distinguished. Both of these conceptions inform discourse on identification, but only the former is relevant to moral responsibility. Second, authority and authenticity real-self theories are unable to accommodate cases in which the agent neither identifies nor disidentifies with his action and yet seems morally responsible for what he does. Third, authority and authenticity real-self theories are vulnerable to counterexamples in which the provenance of the agent's real self undermines responsibility.     

道德信仰的演变及其规律性

道德信仰的演变既表现为共时态的亢进律、波动律、蜕变律,又表现为历时态的崇拜、服从、自由。两交织使道德信仰的演变呈现出复杂性。     

儒家伦理思想与当代中国道德体系建设

儒家伦理思想作为中华民族道德传统的主干,一直深深地、普遍地影响着人们的思想观念和行为选择,对中华民族的道德追求、行为方式和人格塑造都产生了重大影响。儒家“仁爱”的道德原则及其道德规范体系,以及关于职业道德、家庭道德和社会公德的思想和要求,都是社会主义道德建设的宝贵资源。我们应当坚持批判继承其原则和方法,摒弃其消极因素,吸取、弘扬其积极因素,这对于当今中国道德体系的建设是十分重要的。     

如何认识普世伦理——论道德的普遍性与特殊性之关系

普世伦理就是道德的普遍性,它存在于特殊性之中。离开特殊性的普遍性是不存在的。     

市场经济、道德权利与产权伦理

产权伦理是现代市场经济的一个根本性的精神基础,是建立有效的产权制度及其运行机制的重要条件;同时,它是人类道德体系的核心价值理念之一,是基于权利,义务与道德的内在逻辑构建起来的。产权伦理的研究具有重要的理论价值和现实意义,可以构成一门具有特殊的学科特质,研究方法和理论内容的伦理学学科。     

试论高校隐性德育课程设计

高校学生工作即德育工作,虽高等教育质量的生命线,这对于培养新世纪高素质人才具有十分重要的现实意义。高校德育主要是通过德育课程来完成的。高校德育课程由显性德育课程与隐性德育课程两部分构成。实施高校隐性德育课程设计必须深刻理解其内涵及特征,客观确定其价值取向,科学设计其课程内容。